Tuesday, October 2

Following a highly successful run at the Hope Mill Theatre and in London's Vaults, the 50th-anniversary production Hair the Musical is to go on a new tour next spring directed by Jonathan O'Boyle (Pippin, Rain Man, Aspects Of Love), who is reunited with the creative team from Hope Mill Theatre: Gareth Bretherton (Musical Director), William Whelton (Choreographer), Maeve Black (Designer), Ben M Rogers (Lighting Designer), Calum Robinson (Sound Designer) and producers Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment, Joseph Houston & William Whelton for Hope Mill Theatre, Ollie Rosenblatt for Senbla, and associate producer Guy James. The production will be cast by the previous BBC Head of Casting Jane Deitch, and will be announced in due course.

The tour will open at the New Wimbledon Theatre on 22nd March before visiting Cheltenham, Manchester, Cardiff, Plymouth, Birmingham, Sunderland, Dartford, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Edinburgh, Oxford, Sheffield, Brighton and Milton Keynes, with further dates still to be announced.

The musical, which is written by Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermot, tells the story of a country boy from Oklahoma who arrives in New York in the 1960s and falls in with a group of hippies called the Tribe. Their free love and drug-enhanced happiness is disrupted by his Vietnam draft orders.

Hair is a celebration of life, love and freedom, but with a passionate cry for hope and change featuring some of the greatest songs ever written for the stage with a Grammy-winning score including the numbers "Aquarius", "Let the Sun Shine In", "I Got Life" and "Good Morning Starshine".